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Lotus Appeals F1 Name Ruling
What season of F1 would be complete without the off-track drama? The complex battle between racing teams Group Lotus and Team Lotus rages on, indicating that the previous ruling for the rights to the Lotus name didn’t end the dispute yet. Turns out, the high court judge had given Group Lotus the go-ahead to use…
Lotus CEO Denies Plans To Spin Lotus From Proton
Lotus impresario and well-coiffed CEO Dany Bahar has denied reports that he’s planning to divorce Lotus from its Malaysian parent company Proton—right after he mentioned that, well, he might. During a recent interview, Bahar mentioned that he wanted to bring Lotus up to Porsche-killing standards, and in order to do so, he would have to…
GM’s Next-Gen Full-Size SUVs Due Out in 2013 With a Hefty Price Premium
GM’s big SUVs harken back to an era of conspicuous consumption, when $2-a gallon gas and a lingering nostalgia of 15-foot-long American cars flooded the industry. But if the Volt is any indicator, the era of big, cheap Suburbans and Tahoes might finally come to an end with next generation trucks. To meet new fuel…
Fiat Planning To Acquire Last Government Stake In Chrysler
It’s been a dramatic week at Chrysler‘s financial department. Now that Chrysler’s paid off its bailout loan from the government, Fiat is looking to step in and take the government’s remaining share off its hands. Fiat already holds a not-insubstantial 46 percent share in Chrysler. But even though Chrysler and the U.S. and Canadian governments…
Ford Figures Out The Best Place For An Electric Charging Port
Ford thinks it’s finally figured out the best place to put the charging plug on an electric car: on the front grille, like the Nissan Leaf? On the pillar, like the Tesla? Or where the gas cap is supposed to be, like on the G-Wiz? Nope, to all of those: Ford believes that the charging…
BMW To Debut Four New Models At Frankfurt Auto Show
BMW is giving its home turf a big, heaping pile of BMW-osity. The carmaker plans to debut no less than four production models at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September: the M5, the M3 GTS’s sedan version, a redesigned 1-Series, and the i3 electric city car. The M5 and the M3 GTS, of course, will…
Lotus Wins Formula 1 Naming Dispute
Group Lotus, the carmakers, and Team Lotus, the racing team, have been battling it out off the track over the rights to use the name “Lotus.” And in a decision awarded this weekend, Group Lotus has come out on top. Team Lotus traces its lineage back to Colin Chapman’s original Formula 1 efforts in 1952,…
Young British Drivers Pay Through The Nose For Auto Insurance
17th century Scottish writer William Shenstone once said, “nothing is certain in London but expense.” He should be lucky there weren’t cars back in his era, or he would have spit out his haggis: the average cost of insuring a new driver in Ol’ Blighty is around $10,000 a year. That’s money that could…
Alfa Romeo 4C Rumored to Spawn Abarth, Maserati Versions?
Alfa Romeo is banking on the 4C’s ability to seduce us like those posters of Audrey Hepburn from Roman Holiday in every sorority girl’s dorm room. And as an attention-grabbing prelude to a glorious U.S. return, it’s working. Consider us seduced. But that’s not all, folks: the 4C could pave the way for a host…
2014 Corvette to Get Turbocharged V8, Target “a Very Different Sort of Buyer”
Looks like somebody at General Motors got the memo about Corvette owners being aging, denim-swathed lotharios. And to better target the sort of young trendsetters posing in Porsches, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, GM is planning to give some European substance to the Corvette in the form of a smaller turbo V8. That somebody is Mark Reuss,…
Car Theft Ring Busted In New York For Trafficking $10 Million In Luxury SUVs
An international gang of thieves operating in New York City managed to steal nearly 300 vehicles, shipping them off around the globe before finally being busted by police. The 19 thieves targeted luxury SUVs such as Range Rovers, taking orders for specific models from potential buyers around the country and overseas. The crew would then…
Toyota Claims 90% of Production Capacity By This Month, 100% In August
Toyota’s plans to resume full production capacity have been reported pretty frequently, but they are moving on track faster than those reports suggest: the world’s largest automaker believes that it can bring Japanese production back to 90% of pre-earthquake levels, by next month. Toyota also believes that given until August, production will be right where…
Polk Research: Why Are Luxury Cars Losing Sales In America?
Sales of luxury cars have been slipping for some time now. No surprise there—we may not be living in refrigerator boxes (with decent Wifi connections, hence you reading this post), but we’re not completely over the 2008 recession. And yet, luxury cars have sunk even lower in the market for some time now, and not…
Chevrolet Corvette Owners Aren’t Getting Any Younger
Hooray, the Corvette turns 60 this year! And, according to sales figures, so are its consumers. Despite lofty performance at a discount price, the Corvette’s consumer base is aging at a rate that is worrying General Motors—particularly because young people aren’t snapping them up either. Sales of the current generation have been less than those…
Hyundai Offers Free Satellite Radio On Certified Used Cars
20 years ago, buying a Hyundai (and a used one at that) was seen as a sign of failure, as Glengarry Glen Ross alluded to. Now, mercifully, not so much. And to reiterate this bit of pop-culture-driven consumer advice, Hyundai is offering three months of free XM satellite radio on all Hyundais within their Certified…
Volkswagen Inaugurates New Factory In Tennessee
Volkswagen finally opened up their new factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which will employ 2,000 Americans and build up to 150,000 vehicles per year. VW Chairman Dr. Martin Winterkorn and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood were present to inaugurate the factory, as well as the governor of Tennessee and the Germany’s ambassador to the United States….
BMW M Supercar Rumored Again as Successor To Legendary M1
The rumor mill from BMW headquarters, according to a company insider, indicates a possibility of a M1-like supercar—but you’ll have to take it with a heaping pile of salt. Scott27, a relentless forum user and alleged BMW insider, has leaked to the Interwebs that the Bavarian designers are currently considering the idea of a halo…
Mazda RX-9 Could Get Hybrid Technology From Toyota
Here’s a fun question for your upcoming pub quiz: name the only hybrid rotary car ever produced. If you named the Mazda Premacy Hydrogen RE Hybrid, then congratulations! But next year you might be able to name the RX-8’s successor, the aptly-named RX-9, as another car that’s hybrid Wankelin’. According to Mazda’s Hiroshima headquarters, the…
RWD, Supercharged Big-Block Acura Integra: Finally, A Fast Honda
The headline could have also read “finally, a Honda with some torque.” Ok, we kid. But the mere existence of a rear-wheel-drive Acura Integra with a blown 454 Chevy big-block says two things: 1.) you can turn anything into a Pro Street racer with enough knuckle sweat, and 2.) always follow your dreams, kids. The…
Infiniti Working On KERS Energy Recovery System With Red Bull F1
Infiniti might not have their own F1 team, but that little detail isn’t stopping them from helping the Red Bull team with an energy-recovery system for their F1 team. Consider it Infiniti’s foot in the grand prix door. Infiniti’s and Nissan’s electric car expertise are what drew Red Bull to them in the first place,…
Maoists Disrupt Honda Sales In Nepal
Nepal has been under the rule of the Communist Maoist party for 10 years now, and the party tightly controls the amounts of imports that the country receives. Now, a trade group associated with the party has stopped the influx of Honda vehicles into the country, in an attempt to get Honda’s Nepal dealer to…
Saab Investor Throws Saab Fans Under The Bus
Vladimir Antonov is a man on a mission. Namely, he wants a sweet piece of the pie known as Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget; but the forces that conspire against him include the Swedish government and federal investigators. So you think any support he gets against his powerful foes would be a credit to him, right? But what a long, strange…
Honda To Launch Diesel CR-V In India
Honda‘s CR-V may be still popular, but it’s growing long in the tooth. With a new one dropping later this year, Honda may be preparing a diesel version for sale in the booming market of India—and likely depending on the perilous adventure that is gas-price speculation, we may be getting one too. Honda’s new diesel…
Subaru FT-86 Variant Spied Testing in California
Call it whatever you like, but the upcoming Toyota FT-86/Scion FR-S/Toyotabaru/King Ghidorah sports car has been spotted in public, well ahead of its anticipated production-ready December unveiling. We know what the Toyota version looks like—time and time and time again. But the camoed-up version seen stuck in traffic on the 405 looks more like Subaru’s version—and…
